RC Helicopters
will fly down on its approach. You want to make certain that it is aiming for a "touchdown" spot that is 15-25 feet past your position. (You don't need the added challenge of doing your first autorotation nose-in!)
Keep working on this practice until you can consistently have the helicopter headed for your "spot," and work on adjusting the spot at which you drop the stick down based on the model's altitude and airspeed.
Spend some time with this practice; it's very valuable. Practice the entry at various airspeeds too, since the entry speed will affect the angle of descent. As you get comfortable, let the helicopter descend a bit lower, then pull back on the cyclic (elevator) to arrest the forward speed before you start adding throttle to go around.
In general, you do not want to be flying at a very high speed on entry; the forward speed will need to be arrested later during the flare so you can hang vertically instead of skidding onto the ground. Nor do you want to shoot your autorotations from a hover at this point in training; that type of autorotation gives you somewhat less energy to trade for lift at the bottom.
Later on, when you are comfortable with autorotations, you can experiment as you wish. I have shot this maneuver at very high forward speeds and from a hover, and it's fun to practice all the variations. For now, aim for an entry speed of 10-15 mph, and try to get consistent with whatever speed—thus the resulting descent angle—feels best to you.
The next small step is to roll the helicopter upside and fly the same circuits a bit higher than you have been. Then at the proper spot, pull the throttle down and engage the throttle-hold switch. (To back up a bit, remember that you want to check while on the ground that the hold switch results in the clutch disengaging with the engine running at a smooth, easy idle!) This is not much different from the prior exercise, except that you have actually flipped the hold switch.
Now fly the same approach you have been, and at approximately 50 feet high, pull aft cyclic to arrest the forward motion, and smoothly feed in a bit of collective—but not more than roughly half stick (You don't want to actually bleed all your model's head speed at 50 feet!) You'll see the descent rate slow and will hear the difference in sound as the blades trade energy for lift and lose speed. Drop the collective slightly and flip the hold switch back to normal mode, and add power smoothly to go around.
At this point you are practicing three important things. First is learning to use the flight mode switch to engage and disengage the throttle-hold function while you are flying. Second is learning the feel and sound of flying the approach and flare.
Third, you are practicing aborted autorotations. Sometimes even the best of us realize that something isn't going as well as desired during an autorotation and, as long as the engine is running, the smart thing to do in that case is re-engage the engine and fly away.
You need to learn to be careful of where the collective/throttle stick is positioned when you run the hold function off; if you let the head speed bleed way down then switch back to normal mode with the stick way up, the helicopter may well yaw radically and scare the heck out of you.
I am already past my allotted word count, and we haven't shot a full down autorotation yet. We have done all the legwork though, so we'll come back and "mash it on down" next time. Until then, fly safely and happy rotoring!
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
